Page 220 - Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco

204 Jim Stewart

around in a knot by the entrance. As we crossed Powell Street, a
cable car came clanging up the hill. Standing at the corner was a
young hustler. He followed us into the Roxanne Café.
“Three?” the Vietnamese hostess said. She picked up three
menus.
I turned around. The hustler was striking up a conversation
with Ken. Some things in San Francisco never change.
“No, just two,” I said ruefully. It’d already been a very long
day.
The Fettuccini Roxanne was delish.
The next day we explored San Francisco, like tourists. We
bought Muni Metro passes and rode both the Powell and Cali-
fornia Street cable cars. We went to Fishermen’s Wharf and had
Dungeness crab cakes. We wended our way through the reno-
vated Ferry Building and browsed through overpriced kitchen
wares and bought ridiculously delicious chocolates.
The second day in San Francisco was my day of reckoning.
“I’m sure my flat on Clementina is gone,” I said. “Most likely
replaced by a high-rise condo. I’m not sure if I want to look.”
“You’ll never know if you don’t look,” Ken said. “If you don’t
look, I’ll hear about it forever.”
We walked south on 9th Street from Market Street. As we
crossed Howard Street I saw the Lebanese mom-and-pop grocery
store still stood at the corner of Tehama Alley. The liquor sign
was more prominent than it had been. I remembered buying a
bottle of Courvoisier there with Joelle one Christmas eve after a
midnight service at Grace Cathedral. Joelle and her girlfriend had
moved down the peninsula, had a baby, and gone MIA.
I glanced in the direction where my flat on Clementina Alley
had been. No high-rises reared into the sky. I quickened my pace.
Here was the corner. “Clementina End.” The street sign was still
there. We rounded the corner. There it stood. The shingles I’d
nailed up the summer of 1976 were weathered, but still there. The
brown trim was faded, but still there. I started to weep.
“You better give me the camera if you want some pictures,”
Ken said. I gave him the camera.
The place had changed a little. Two gigantic dusty jade plants